The Chris Cuomo Project - Why Comedian Ami Kozak Thinks the Debate Over Israel Is BROKEN

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

Ami Kozak (comedian and musician) joins Chris Cuomo to discuss rising anti-Zionism, the backlash against Israel since October 7th, and how he uses satire to respond to hate. Kozak explains how his Jew...ish identity shapes his worldview, why the far left and far right both weaponize antisemitic tropes, and how performative politics is blurring the lines between legitimate critique and bigotry. He also shares impressions and critiques of public figures like Bernie Sanders, Dave Smith, and Joe Rogan, takes on Tucker Carlson, and explains why impressions can reach people in ways arguments can’t. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: For a limited time only, get 60% off your first order PLUS free shipping when you head to https://Smalls.com/CUOMO. Go to http://cozyearth.com and use code CHRIS for up to 40% off best-selling temperature-regulating sheets, apparel, and more. Trust me—you’ll feel the difference the very first night. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Comedians can make pretty good social critics. And I have one that you are gonna wanna know about. I'm Chris Cuomo, welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. Ami Kozak. There are a few spaces as hot and as difficult to navigate as there is when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but really bigger, just Israel. Israel is under attack, literally and politically.
Starting point is 00:00:25 And we're seeing that here at home in America, let alone in the Middle East. Ami has a really interesting take as a super sophisticated, smart, orthodox Jew who uses humor through these really uncanny impersonations that he does to dig into arguments about anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. And it's a really interesting approach to a really controversial space.
Starting point is 00:00:50 So I wanted to talk to Ami about the growth he's seen and is following and what he thinks matters and what he believes is gonna come next. And it got pretty deep. Ami, thank you for taking the opportunity. Good to be with you, Chris. Thank you for having me. Why are you all over my For You page?
Starting point is 00:01:16 Well, I work very hard to be undeniable in the algorithm. So I'm a force to be reckoned with out there and I hope I can bring you some levity in this crazy time. So you got a lot of different talents. Thank you. My oldest, who's a musician, turned me on to you as a bassist. And then I realized that you have become somewhat of a political satirist. What did you, what motivated you to enter this space and what are you about in this space? So yes, actually it's so interesting you discovered me as a musician, which is weird. The universe has interesting plans for us. I've been a musician for over 15 years, professional
Starting point is 00:01:58 musician producing music for film and television. I play in a band called Distant Cousins and a couple of years ago I got into the comedy space, making content first on TikTok. And when everything shut down during COVID and all the live shows shut down, I kind of doubled down on that and was making a lot of content impressions, bits and sketches.
Starting point is 00:02:17 And then fast forward, I was able to build a comedy audience on that. I moved from LA to New York a couple of years ago and got into the stand-up world. Then came October 7th. Now I wasn't always overtly political in my comedy. I always saw it as a place to just come and laugh, you know, fun for everyone. But I mean, I wasn't shy about my political opinions, but it wasn't overtly that.
Starting point is 00:02:38 But then after October 7th, you know, everyone had this October 8th moment and I'm an Orthodox Jew. I have family in Israel. I have family in Israel I have friends in Israel, but I found myself in a world where Entertainment alone didn't suffice given that we can only entertain each other in a world where everybody respects each other's basic human decency And I felt like there was a very big moral confusion that took over Particularly the West after October 7th in not being able to identify the good and evil in that situation. So I took to my platform and spoke out about it.
Starting point is 00:03:07 And turns out that my ability to provide some moral clarity on the issue was very helpful in clarifying for a lot of people. And I continue to be outspoken about that, about Israel, about antisemitism as I see it today. So it's kind of a fusion of those two. And I thought it was a departure, but it kind of brought me full swing
Starting point is 00:03:21 into a whole world of things. How old are you? 38. How much has your following grown since October 7th? So initially it took a little dip and I discovered that apparently I had a whole fan base of people who like Jordan Peterson impressions, who like bass guitar, and who like comedy but also like Hamas so I was like that's a strange strange sliver there that I didn't realize was following me but you know you lose about 15,000 then you gain you know 30,000 more and you're able to really deepen your relationship with the community you find out who your real people are and yeah I found that you know
Starting point is 00:04:03 thankfully I wasn't tied to a lot of brands who were like cowardly about not wanting me to speak out about Israel. I was pretty independent and just kind of speaking what I thought was true and authentic and couldn't avoid this topic in the world that we found ourselves in where it felt like things were just kind of broken and needed that kind of repair. And it's been growing since and both the comedy and using the comedy in a satirical way because I feel like you can comment on something and shed truth about it but comedy has a good way of really shining a bright light on what is wrong with the situation. Yes, it's definitely an ingredient.
Starting point is 00:04:38 It just should be a condiment, not an entree. It should be like salt or cumin. It shouldn't be steak, which is what a lot of our politics has become. When you say you're Orthodox, is that newfound depth of faith or have you always lived this way? And what does that mean for the uninitiated? The uninitiated. I have always been a modern Orthodox Jew, so modern Orthodox meaning we keep Sabbath, we keep kosher, I live in a community of modern Orthodox Jews. We also go to movies, we're familiar with pop culture, we learn both science, math,
Starting point is 00:05:14 technology in schools, and Judaic studies, so it's always this kind of marriage of both secular subjects and traditional Jewish subjects, and learning to balance that into an integrated life is what it means to be a modern Orthodox Jew, where you don't have to throw out your traditional values, but you don't have to throw out modernity either, you can find a balance. And I've always been that way along that path. And I think for a lot of people, especially Jews in the diaspora outside of Israel, I was very grateful to have had that foundation because for a lot of people in the Jewish
Starting point is 00:05:43 community that I know that didn't have that, they found themselves wondering like, am I a part of this world that is now hated or that is now being demonized? What does it mean to me? And having that foundation and being able to articulate why I care about these issues, I'm very, very grateful to have that foundation
Starting point is 00:06:00 and that education. And for me, it just sort of reignited a sort of sense of Jewish consciousness, and it moved everybody a little bit. So even for me, who was already very much in this world, it was very hard to be insincere after October 7th. Everything felt very real, everything felt almost biblical.
Starting point is 00:06:16 If you were ever cynical beforehand about talking about spiritual issues or religious issues, somehow it did not feel cynical anymore. It didn't feel fluffy or it felt meaningful. And infusing things with meaning and purpose, I think for a lot of people, and including myself in the Zionist and Orthodox community, but also outside of that, it was sort of this call,
Starting point is 00:06:34 this awakening to fulfill yourself with a little more meaning and direction. Do you feel that the needle is moving away from being pro-Israeli, of seeing attacks on Jews and towards being against what Israel is doing in Gaza and that it's not anti-Semitism to be against what Israel is doing and to think Bibi Netanyahu is a war criminal and that this is a genocide. Listen, 18 months to, 20 months into a conflict where you've been bombarded by the optics of war, which any war, just or unjust, would look comparable,
Starting point is 00:07:18 would look similar. There is no war in history, the most just war in the world that everyone would get behind that wouldn't have images like this. When you see this and you see it for 20 months, and if it's October 8th, if it's November of 2023, I find it a little less forgivable for you to not know who the good guys are and the bad guys are. And I still maintain that Israel is on the right side of this and I'd make that case.
Starting point is 00:07:41 But if you're coming to this after being bombarded by propaganda, by manipulation, by distortions of information, and you don't know anything about this, I can have a little bit of grace and sympathy for people who are just kind of seeing bombardments of horrible images of war, and they should be empathetic. They should understand, it's natural for them
Starting point is 00:07:59 to feel for human suffering. We don't want them to have the opposite reaction to that, but I make it a habit to make sure that I clarify who's accountable for that suffering. We don't want them to have the opposite reaction to that, but I make it a habit to make sure that I clarify who's accountable for that suffering. And it's undeniable to me that as we talk about this issue, there are hostages still in Gaza. Hamas has yet to surrender. They initiated this recent military campaign that brought on this war. Everyone who's perished in the last year was alive on October 4th, 5th and 6th. We must never forget that. And then you can get into military critiques, tactical critiques, what's more effective, but you must never forget what the standard is in a war and that is victory over your enemies who are evil.
Starting point is 00:08:34 Hamas is evil. The regimes that fund it is evil. They stand for values that are antithetical to the Western world, that are antithetical to all those people who want to stand up for innocent suffering Palestinians, but they align themselves with people who perpetuate that suffering. And I kind of make two distinctions there. And so I don't judge someone who's coming into this, not knowing anything about this conflict or the region, and all they've seen is human suffering.
Starting point is 00:08:56 It's a very easy thing for them to get pushed into believing something not true. So I try to make distinctions and be discerning between the sort of movable middle that is swaying and people who are bad actors and nefarious actors out there. Also whether it's public opinion or not, at the end of the day, right is right and just is just. And if we go by only public opinion and public opinion alone to determine morality, well
Starting point is 00:09:17 morality is not always popular and the good guys are not always popular. So that can't be the driving force. But I do what I can to be the conduit to try to provide some clarity as this goes on. It seems that the needle is moving, specifically in the Democratic Party. It seems that, you know, that was always the home of most Jews, politically, and now it seems like the populism there
Starting point is 00:09:41 sees Israel, but also Jews, as more of the white establishment and the oppressor class. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, Jordan Peterson always used to talk about how Jews are their canary in the coal mine, you know, it's like, well. And he points out that in a Western society that's collapsing upon itself, if you look at the enemies of the United States in the West, they can't necessarily defeat us militarily, but what they can do is turn a society against itself. It's sort of an old Soviet tactic
Starting point is 00:10:11 whereby you can turn a population against itself to lose faith in its own morality, to lose faith in its own moral superiority to regimes that are far less moral and less just and do not protect human rights. So Israel is sort of to me that first step. You can paint it in this oppressor oppressed narrative. You see prosperity, you see power,
Starting point is 00:10:32 you see a high standard of living. They must be the bad guys. And I actually think a lot of this stems from the university apparatus by which you have all these administrators and professors who are the intellectuals in society and they feel that they should be running things, that they should have more power,
Starting point is 00:10:47 that they should have more control. And who's the first testing ground for that is impressionable young students who when they get to school say, oh, plot twist, America's the bad guy, Israel's the bad guy, the West is actually evil, did you know? And they play into this kind of seductive narrative
Starting point is 00:11:02 that flips all of their traditional values of the students and makes the administrators in the professoriate class feel powerful. And because the last people they can influence before they go out into the world are these students and you see that now. Students who protest in the streets and align themselves with regimes that would not protect their rights to do so in those countries. And this sort of this fetish, it has to be a lot of what I call F-U mom energy. It's a lack of gratitude. It's looking at all these things that they have, all this prosperity, and this sort of this fetish, it has to be a lot of what I call F-U-Mom energy. It's a lack of gratitude. It's looking at all these things that they have,
Starting point is 00:11:27 all this prosperity and they sort of want to turn around and resent the world that's blessed them with that. A lot of these people protesting are in fact, upper middle class, college educated, graduate school students and I think that as it turns on Israel, it's really a deeper thing about turning against countries that are powerful, countries that are prosperous, that have high standards of living, and there's a resentment because if you believe the world is inherently unjust, right,
Starting point is 00:11:54 and exploitative, then none of that stuff can be achieved legitimately. It's all moral relativism. No country, no culture is better than another. And so there's a seductive nature to that, unimpressionable young minds to want to flip the script. And at the end of the day, I think if you have integrity and tell the truth, as you see it in the long run, you will succeed. And, you know, I don't, I am concerned that I have my eyes on it, but my impulse isn't to be hysterical. I kind of, you kind of stay the course even through the storm. What's the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? So I think that it's an interesting thing because it is possible to possess certain anti-Semitic ideas or perpetuate anti-Semitic ideas
Starting point is 00:12:40 without necessarily realizing it because anti-Semitism is such a deep historical hatred. It goes back such a long way for thousands of years for millennia that when you don't realize the pattern that you're falling into, Jewish control of, you know, when you see it on the far right, you know, the banks behind the media, you know, if there had never been a Holocaust or pogroms
Starting point is 00:13:00 or inquisitions, we could look at that in a vacuum and say, okay, it's interesting that these narratives are there. Where did they come from? But as Jews, you know, we could look at that in a vacuum and say, okay, it's interesting that these narratives are there, where do they come from? But as Jews, we have these antennas on because we've seen this play out before in recent history. And so there's like the far right version of it and we've seen it happen. And I'm all for, I'm not one of these people
Starting point is 00:13:19 who was sort of on the left calling out every criticism or every societal ill as attributed to racism or anti-Semitism. I think even a lot of Jews on the left who were of the left kind of jumped on that bandwagon and I think the term anti-Semitism therefore lost a lot of cultural power. But that doesn't mean that when we do see it, because we're so reactionary to not wanting to be part of cancel culture, we don't call out basic lack of human distancy and racism and anti-Semitism when we do see it. I think we can walk into gum at the same time.
Starting point is 00:13:46 Back to your question, Zionism and antisemitism. Look, you know, if you're against all nation states, if you don't believe in the right for self-determination for any people, for the Japanese and Japan, for Indians in India, for Chinese in China, if you don't believe in any of those self-determinist movements, then you, I guess you can be consistent and say,
Starting point is 00:14:07 no peoples have the right to self-determination or ancestral indigenous rights or connections to their homeland. But if you just focus on Israel and you only criticize Israel and you're not bothered by any of the far worse actors in the world that commit far worse human rights abuses, if you exclusively focus on Israel for your criticism, That's one sign that it crosses the line. The other thing is
Starting point is 00:14:30 The other thing is that you know critiques of Israeli policy Critiques of Bibi Netanyahu ask any Israeli in Tel Aviv if they're anti-semitic It would be ridiculous part of Israeli society Israeli, and Israeli protest culture is about dissent and criticizing Israel as a government criticizing policy. But that's not what most of these people do. They wanna destroy the only Jewish state on earth. And they wanna dismantle it, and they won't be satisfied for anyone else.
Starting point is 00:14:59 And some of them hide behind, oh, I'm just against foreign aid. But really, you don't go screaming about foreign aid to Pakistan or Egypt or any other country. Somehow the singular scapegoat, as has Jews have been as a people throughout history, the singular scapegoat manifested in the form of a state is the Jewish one.
Starting point is 00:15:15 When there's 20 some odd Arab states and 50 some odd Muslim states, if you look at the Middle East, the Arabs pretty much won. And there's one sliver the side of New Jersey and that animates the world like nothing else. You know, that's where it crosses the line for me, and it's very obvious that if you just kind of zoom out from her inside view, what's really going on.
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Starting point is 00:16:39 What are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve for a limited time. Because you're a Chris Cuomo project listener You can get 60% off your first Smalls order plus free shipping. Just go to Smalls.com slash Cuomo 60% off Smalls.com slash Cuomo free shipping again Smalls.com slash Cuomo I wish it weren't BB in power right now, even though he is arguably especially suited to conflict. He was in such deep water before this and for good reason.
Starting point is 00:17:24 And, you know, he was being investigated for this and for good reason. And, you know, he was being investigated for heavy shit for good reason. And I think that it would have been a different set of politics if there was someone who was regarded as less hostile, but you don't get to choose people in the mix. You know, you just, you go with where you find it. And I do believe there's a couple of lit tests uh you identified one which is is there any other
Starting point is 00:17:50 country that you think shouldn't exist um and the second one is have you ever called on Hamas to end the war a lot of people are not who claim to be speaking on behalf of Palestinians are not pro Palestinian or pro a Palestinian state or pro-Palestinian self-determination. They are anti-Israel. They are anti-Jewish state. And in fact, most of the Palestinianism that Anat Wolff talks about, which is the movement that Israel's been combating against, is about one side wanting to live as a Jewish state and the other side not wanting that country to live as a Jewish state and to be dismantled.
Starting point is 00:18:25 There was no efforts to create a Palestinian state between 48 and 67. So this has always been about destroying Israel, not about creating Palestine. Now I'll push back a little bit on the Bibi thing, not because I'm stumping for Bibi in any way. First of all, I think that's very disrespectful to talk about me, Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister. I think that is incredibly disrespectful that you say that. Chris, I've always appreciated your advocacy,
Starting point is 00:18:46 but to call me out for being, I mean, this is just ridiculous. So we are in a war, rising lion. But I will say this, Bibi, you can talk about the minutia, the granular details of Israel in terms of policy, in terms of who's in charge, which party, but those are all marginal issues. And it doesn't really put enough emphasis on
Starting point is 00:19:07 the fundamental issue. If you took out every, if you uprooted every community in the West Bank and Judea and Sumeria, if you got rid of Bibi and put in a far left party, all of the enemies of Israel would still exist and wanna destroy it. Iran would still be funding terror to try to destroy Israel, Hamas would still be there.
Starting point is 00:19:25 Hezbollah would have still been there. Bibi or not Bibi, because again, if you had two rational actors who both want the same things and were acting as moral equals in this conflict, you could say one is more of a barrier and doesn't want and one doesn't. But the whole peace process delusion rests on the assumption that Israel and its enemies in the, in the Hamas
Starting point is 00:19:45 are moral equals, that they both want the same thing, but they don't. If you took Bibi out of the equation and put in a different leader, you remember all the people slaughtered, a majority of them on October 7th were peaceniks. They were activists, they hated Bibi. It made no difference to the Hamas terrorists
Starting point is 00:19:58 who took them hostage, raped them, killed them, burned them alive. I think if you took Bibi out, that is just not the fundamental issue. We can disagree or agree on his policies, but that's a conversation we have internally amongst, you know, people who share Western values. And I just don't think that would do anything.
Starting point is 00:20:14 The real issue that needs to be addressed is the unwillingness of the Palestinian side to accept living alongside a Jewish state. Look at all the leaders in the Arab world or in Gaza. Who has risen up and spoken about coexistence and peace? And we blame Bibi as the extreme guy or the people, Schmoltrich and Ben-Gver. I'm not saying I agree with all of them,
Starting point is 00:20:34 but they are just not representative. So it's a matter of degree. It's just not representative about what Israelis want versus I think unfortunately what a lot of, it's seemingly Palestinians would want is to not live alongside the Yahud, the Jewish state. Perception in politics is often reality. And if you're explaining, you're losing.
Starting point is 00:20:52 And I think that that's why I see the needle shift in terms of the optics. And then I think that's also being reflected in something I've seen you start to act on, which is what's happening on the left in this country, what bothers you about it so much? I've talked to people, at News Nation, I didn't cover my brother's race because obviously it would make no sense. But I have been open in telling people that I was not liking the prospects
Starting point is 00:21:21 of my brother running as a Democrat, although he will argue very strenuously. He is. I would just argue that the party has left him and you'd be better off running against the party. But these are his choices and his life. I just support him and love him. You don't tell me what to do, Chris.
Starting point is 00:21:37 You don't tell your brother what to do. I'm sorry. I don't know if that's accurate. I tell you what, I think that you are 15% too high, but you have the intonation. Okay. Okay, so a little lower. Okay, you know better than I do. You certainly do. And it's a little Jewish, but... I can't... Well, I can't help that. We do sound Jewish. I'm not Italian. What can I tell you? We do sound Jewish. I proudly, you know, my neighbor... Close cousins. Close cousins. All Italians and Jews. Where I grew up, I have two Jewish brothers-in-law, a family that I choose, many
Starting point is 00:22:05 are Jewish, when people have said to me, you know, you're an ally, so I can't take you seriously. I said, no, I'm definitely an ally. If you're asking me whether or not I think Jews have the right to exist within their own country, yes, I am an ally to that cause, as I am for any ethnicity and their place of domicile. But what do you see happening in the left that has you exercise and has you using your platform
Starting point is 00:22:32 to go after what's being promised? What bothers you about it? Well, I mean, if I'm taking an analytical approach when I watch it, I think that people have seen a Trump victory and the continuing loss of establishment, moderate centrist candidates in the Democratic Party. And they're looking at it going,
Starting point is 00:22:52 you see, every single time you try these establishment candidates, the tried and true of the baby boomer generations, the politics of the 90s and early 2000s, we lose. And I know that a lot of people were celebrating the sort of woke burst bubble of Trump's victory in 2024. I was too. But when you look at New York City and you see,
Starting point is 00:23:10 wait a minute, there's also the populist element. There's the emotional resonance. That's why Trump is so popular. His charisma, his persuadability, his ability to connect with the audience. And that, unfortunately, it's powerful, but it's not based in necessarily necessarily like principles and ideas are a platform It's based on charisma and it's not even based on ideology
Starting point is 00:23:31 But if you pair that charisma with the wrong ideology, then you get a lot of danger Then you get your Hugo Chavez and Maduro and Mamdani and a lot of times, you know We've called a lot of Democrats socialist dick. We've called them leftist and Marxist and here's a guy who's saying I am one. So that's I guess the silver lining We're not you know exaggerating here. We have a real socialist you have the AOC Far left part of the movement that's saying it's our turn We're gonna get our victory now. Look how the populism on the right worked It's gonna work on the left and I think people are seeing that. And it's very easy. I mean, socialist ideas are always seductive. They always work on young minds who don't have experience,
Starting point is 00:24:10 you know, growing up in the world and paying taxes and doing those things and being not educated. Coming out of the university, you have now a whole base. You have a whole demographic of people who've been educated and indoctrinated to believe, to ignore the atrocities of the 20th century of socialist and communist regimes and say, hey, these all sound like fresh new ideas, even though they are old, recycled, long debunked, immoral, evil ideas. And so that's what I see happening
Starting point is 00:24:35 that they're gonna double down and we're gonna see an AOC type, AOC 2028, because they're gonna see what Trump was able to do. They're gonna get rid of all the woke stuff and all the culturally divisive stuff and say, we're for the people, because Trump was able to do. They're gonna get rid of all the woke stuff and all the culturally divisive stuff and say, we're for the people, because Trump was able to claim the people. And I find that weird that they call it working people
Starting point is 00:24:52 when I think billionaires often work very, very long hours to build their empires. But it's just, it's division. And I think one of the things that is troubling about it is, and I had a problem with this on the MAGA side, I still do, was the cultivation of white fright. And what I see on the other side, I don't think it's a coincidence
Starting point is 00:25:10 that AOC says the minimum when it comes to Israel. AOC says perfunctory things that are very hollow in terms of the personal sense of her passion about it when she talks about anti-Semitism. And I think that I don't, you know, I don't know enough to say that the guy who beat my brother in the primary is anti-Semitic, but he hangs out with a lot of people and gives shelter
Starting point is 00:25:39 to a lot of ideas that are anti-Semitic. And a lot of his followers say and traffic in really ugly things that are absolutely anti-Semitic. And what do you make of that in terms of what it represents? And do you think it's just about the Jews or the Jews getting caught up in the reaction formation to the establishment? are the Jews getting caught up in the reaction formation to the establishment? So the difference between right-wing antisemitism and left-wing antisemitism is really one thing.
Starting point is 00:26:12 On the right, you could just say you hate Jews. You could just come out and say it, because in that audience, in that far-right, woke-right world, that's acceptable socially, and it's part of the identitarian, white nationalist ideology, and there's nothing contradictory the identitarian white nationalist ideology and there's nothing contradictory there.
Starting point is 00:26:27 But if you go to the left, which is supposed to be for minority rights and it's supposed to be for protecting marginalized communities, you first have to do one maneuver. You have to make Jews not part of that group that you swear to protect and stand with. So what do you do?
Starting point is 00:26:42 You call them Zionists, right? You put them in this category of Zionists and you use all the same language as the far right. Dirty Zionists, the Zionists controlling the media, the Zionist media. It's not the Jewish media. You just use one word and you change it. You could say all the same things the far right Nazis do, but now you're an enlightened liberal leftist and you can say all those things. So you can do that. And then when it comes to violence against Jews, violence against Zionists, you don't condemn those actions or the people responsible.
Starting point is 00:27:09 You condemn concepts. Hate has no place here. Violence has no place here. And Mamdani does a lot of very sneaky things. He'll say, I have no problem with Jewish people. I just apologize for, make excuses for, and evade and obfuscate for those who do hate Jews. Ha ha ha ha.
Starting point is 00:27:24 He won't condemn Hamas. He won't condemn October 7th. Remember, October 7th, it's so interesting. There's a few linguistic tricks he does and you have to pay really close attention. For one thing, he also, he condemns concepts like hate and violence. Who wouldn't condemn that? But then he, he called October 7th a war crime, the horrible war crime of October 7th. How interesting.
Starting point is 00:27:43 What does war crime imply? It implies that there was a war already going on and then Hamas was just kind of part of it. And sure, like good states and bad states can commit war crimes within a war, but there wasn't this current military campaign in this war yet. They initiated an aggress against Israel very clearly,
Starting point is 00:28:01 but he calls it a war crime. There's another thing, an intifada means different things to different people Excuse me. There was an actual first and second intifada. What was the second intifada? Suicide bombs and Israeli malls and cafes and buses These are real things that happen and you need two things for the society to crumble and for evil to prevail You have the evil forces and then you have those who tell you they aren't really evil. They aren't really happening They make apologies for them. If you have to do it in the West, on the right, evil can just rise like that unapologetically.
Starting point is 00:28:30 On the left, there's a few maneuvers you need to do to just sneak it by people. Oh, you're not fighting, you know, we're not anti-Semitic, we're actually virtuous. We're condemning the own, we're condemning Israel, the Zionist entity. You can call it all of these things so that you can maintain your identity and coverage as a left-wing enlightened liberal who stands for human rights. And in the name of human rights, destroy Israel. You see how convenient that works?
Starting point is 00:28:53 So they just have one little mechanism. But they're all parallel ways of thinking, woke ways of thinking, you know, and collectivist ways of thinking. And yeah, anti-Semitism completely animates it. Even when he gets pressed on specific questions. I think Israel does have the right to exist as a state with equal rights.
Starting point is 00:29:11 What's the implication that Israel and the people within Israel don't have equal rights? So he's already making an accusation, even in his defense of Israel. He won't arrest violent criminals in the streets of New York City, but he will arrest Bibi Netanyahu. And he is a socialist and he wants to seize the means of production and he's anti-Israel. If Hamas invaded Israel and slaughtered everybody,
Starting point is 00:29:30 I think at the end of the day, he would side with the fact that it is resistance and that it's justified. I think he would talk about the reason this happened. We need to talk about the consequences of why this happened. When people are oppressed for so long, this is what they have to do. You know, this is what he would do. There's no question
Starting point is 00:29:46 He make every excuse in the world for it And if a Zionist wearing an Israeli flag was attacked in New York City or they they were kicked off the subway for being Zionist Would his hate task force? Prosecute that as hate crimes. I think he would be marching right alongside them. Hmm How do you explain Bernie Sanders the Jew from Brooklyn feeling the same way? Well, of course look Chris look we could talk about this because now you've set me off and I'm very pissed off about this. You called me a Jew from Brooklyn, but I'm barely Jewish. I look Jewish.
Starting point is 00:30:14 I certainly act Jewish as it's portrayed in media and then portrayed in the movies. But look, I hate to judge people's personal identities, but if we're being honest here, what does Bernie Sanders Judaism really mean? What does his Jewish identity really mean? Is he belong to a Jewish community? Is he married to a Jewish woman? Does he have a Jewish family? Does he practice Judaism? No. So if all of those things aren't there, and when he had to admit it in the I was one of the ones who was pushing him on it. You know, I was one of the ones who was pushing Bernie to run. Yeah, originally, not because I was an advocate of his ideas,
Starting point is 00:30:46 but I felt that we would have benefited, the conversation would have benefited. And you need to have ideas, even if they're a little bit exaggerated forms of what's possible, I think it informs the kind of balance of ideas, the spectrum of ideas. And I was like, instead of just coming on my show and talking about it all the time, Bernie, why don't you run And I was like, instead of just coming on my show and talking about it all the time,
Starting point is 00:31:05 Bernie, why don't you run? He was like, nobody wants to know what Bernie Sanders is saying about these things. And I would say to him, that's a weird Vermont accent you have, do you think that's gonna sell in America? And he finally got forced to say it, and I'll never forget his face.
Starting point is 00:31:20 Yes, yes, my mother and father were Jewish, and yes, I am a Jew. That's not bad. I have, that is the religion, yes, I am Jewish. But, and then he ran away from it. But there's a lot of people, look, at the end of the day, I try not to judge other people's level of Jewishness, but if we're, if they're only using their Jewish identity
Starting point is 00:31:45 to criticize Israel, if that's the only time their Jewish identity is relevant to them is to hate on the Jewish people or the Jewish state, then I'm sorry. That doesn't count. You don't get to claim that you're Jewish. It doesn't count to you, but it has to count to me. Like when Dave Smith is attacking Gaza, he says, and I'm Jewish. Yeah, I know. But that that it doesn't mean first of all, you're representative of a community that you're connected to or that you speak on behalf of because the Jewish community
Starting point is 00:32:13 at large isn't really that connected to you. You're not really engaged with it. You're not a part of it. You don't practice Judaism. You just put on a tallit and a prayer shawl when you go to the protest, if you're on the far left. And for Dave Smith to say like, Jews have no reason to be paranoid,
Starting point is 00:32:27 Jews have a history of paranoia, it's like, you might be revealing that you're not as sensitive to what has happened to the Jewish people historically or grown up with Holocaust surviving grandparents and deep entrenched Jewish tradition and value and Jewish values. If none of those things really matter to you or are a part of your life, then what you say does not hold that much water just because you are technically Jewish.
Starting point is 00:32:48 At the end of the day though, I'm judging the arguments and I get that to non-Jews. What you do is you provide a lot of cover for people who want to hate on Israel and don't want to seem anti-Semitic or hold to their old double standards. And you can say, you see, well, this Jewish person, I mean, the biggest critics of Israel from Norman Finkelstein, he's also a Jew, but he hates Jews. You know, all these people, I want to have, I don't want to talk about this. Now I'm upset and now I need to go to the bathroom. Where's my medication?
Starting point is 00:33:16 Okay. He's the biggest critic of Israel, biggest critic of Jews. It is possible to say something that is an antisemitic idea, to have a notion that you're perpetuating that is antisemitic and still be a Jewish person. Like, your technical ethnicity doesn't determine whether the idea you're perpetuating is an anti-semitic idea. It doesn't make you self-hating.
Starting point is 00:33:34 I don't like those arguments that are thrown at Dave Smith or anyone else to say, he hates Jews, or he's a self-hating Jew, or a kapo. I sort of understand the emotional resonance of that and what it's motivating it, but it's a little unproductive. It's not always true. I judge the ideas and I engage on arguments. But if someone comes at me and says, but he's Jewish, just like, but I'm Jewish, so does
Starting point is 00:33:55 that make all my arguments defending Israel correct? No. Just because I'm Jewish doesn't mean my pro-Israel stance is valid and Dave's anti-Israel stance is not validated by his Judaism either. He's technically Jewish? Cool. I'm technically Jewish. I'm probably a lot more religious, observant, and connected to the Jewish community than
Starting point is 00:34:11 a Dave Smith or Bernie Sanders? Fine. Kind of irrelevant. But if you're going to try to use it as a wedge to prevent criticism, then I object. What do you make of his arguments and of people who are using him within the pod world as proof of the truth about the Middle East and what America's posture should be. So, you know, I try to, I've engaged with Dave on a few occasions,
Starting point is 00:34:34 we spar on Twitter a little bit, Twitter doesn't bring out the best in people, but it's a little playground, a little nasty piece of road rage group chat energy. But we have also debated, you know, legitimately on this topic. I think he's a formidable. I think he helps make pro-Israel arguments sharper. I think a lot of people who do criticize Dave, unfortunately, result to a lot of ad hominem attacks, and he's not shy to respond in kind, as you know. If you attack him, he'll attack you back. I try not to
Starting point is 00:35:02 ever even go there, but I do think you keep it to the arguments. My issue is whenever he does say, how about my arguments? Then I counter with an argument. He says, way to misrepresent my position. And I'm like, what do you want? I'm like each time, so what's the argument? But I take it as it is, I'm really for the philosophy of sticking to the arguments
Starting point is 00:35:20 and not the person making the arguments. And don't try to, people criticize his comedy, people criticize this. I think that's all unproductive and it doesn't add to the arguments and not the person making the arguments and don't try to people criticize his comedy people criticize it. I think that's all unproductive and it doesn't add to the conversation. But I think it does help you to kind of refine those arguments and look at the end of the day, he has his positions. And I think those are healthy debates to engage with where I have some ethical objections to what he's done is when he's gone on sort of the
Starting point is 00:35:46 podcasts of those actors that I think are bad faith actors or really true unapologetic anti-Semites like Jake Shields or people in that world. If you're going on those conversations and you're doing it uncritically and at the end of that conversation a person like Jake Shields feels better about his Jew hatred and his Israel hatred because you've a person like Jake Shields feels better about his Jew hatred and his Israel hatred, because you've affirmed that his beliefs are not unfounded. Well, you know, that's morally questionable. That's how Dave gets paid. But that's what he's doing. He didn't exist before MAGA, he didn't exist before COVID paranoia and conspiracy theories.
Starting point is 00:36:23 And whether he wants to translate it this way or not, a lot of what he says about the Middle East is articulated through a conspiratorial lens. But my main thing though is that, I mean, I've been following him before this with reason and in the libertarian thing, I was also kind of libertarian at one point in terms of economics and things like that. So I've been aware of him. But yeah, certainly the bigger audience since the seventh has happened. But you know, I mean, I'm building an audience too.
Starting point is 00:36:49 We're in this space, so I don't really fault him for that. And I give him credit where credit is due, but he has maximum condemnation for the Zionist side and minimum grace and maximum sympathy and apologetics for the anti-Zionist side and a ton of grace for that. So like when somebody on the pro-Israel side says something, man, are they evil? Yeah, but that's because that's how he gets paid. That's why he keeps showing up on Piers Morgan.
Starting point is 00:37:15 You have to be extreme in the media these days. There is no nuance. There is no context. That's why I actually think you found, you know, your ability to do impressions. I don't know if you've always had it or it's something that you've been developing, you know, in this new pursuit that you're doing, but that really allows you to get around the problem that everybody else faces, which is the absolutism. Dave Smith doesn't have any what you call grace. It's not grace, I mean you can call it that, but.
Starting point is 00:37:46 It's a posture. I do think Dave legitimately believes what he says. He's an anarcho-capitalist. He does not believe in nation states at all. And so therefore, that's don't. Yeah, he says that, but he lives in one. I know. He says he's a libertarian, which is just code
Starting point is 00:37:58 for saying that you're smarter than other people, because libertarian has never won an election, has never run anything, you can't even tell what it would look like as an exercise of power, so calling yourself that means what? I want government out of my life. Yeah, okay, unless you need it, right? Yeah. And then you want it in your life. There's the philosophical arguments about anarcho-capitalism or manarchism, all, uh, minor chism, all those kinds of things, but I think what sort of the blind spot here is, is it's weird to be against nation states,
Starting point is 00:38:25 but want to facilitate the creation of a very hostile one right on Israel's border. And in any event, I do think he genuinely as far as he goes, at least when you engage with him, it's always helpful to accept that someone believes what they're saying and that they're coming in in good faith. That's the only way to really engage with things. Having said that, you were making this additional point about, you know, because everybody's, I mean, I do think that I try to be discerning on who's out there in good faith and making arguments and who's out there and making attacks and is hateful,
Starting point is 00:38:51 you know, so I just, I kind of draw the line there. And just because someone benefits, I mean, I'm a capitalist, and if someone benefits from the idea, if someone is getting a lot of benefit out of espousing their ideas and people value it, then I'm all for it. People try to say, you are a Zionist shill,
Starting point is 00:39:04 look at this, he's doing it for this, he's doing it for this, but you know, at the end of the day, if people like what I have to say and they resonate with it, that's great. Support comes from cozy earth. Look, I use it. I dig the bedding and I dig the leisure wear. Bamboo sheets, the technology is great.
Starting point is 00:39:22 That viscose bamboo helps you stay cooler in the summertime, warmer in the wintertime, but it's also so much more sustainable than what we're usually destroying to make our textiles. It washes really well, it's soft, it's durable, and I like that it's made out of bamboo. And you know, the way you sleep is going to affect your mood. The more comfortable you are when you get And you know, the way you sleep is going to affect your mood. The more comfortable you are when you get into the bed, the more you're going to want to go to sleep, the longer you're going to sleep,
Starting point is 00:39:50 the better you're going to sleep, and the better you're going to be when you're awake. I'll tell you what I also like, especially when it's so hot and humid at this time of year, night sweats not as big a thing with this new bedding for me for Cozy Earth. And I think it's because it helps keep you cool. I use it. That it helps keep you cool.
Starting point is 00:40:05 I use it. That's all you need to know, okay? I'm very picky about what I have in my house. And I can have whatever I want, and I choose to have Cozy Earth. What I like about it best, and this may be weird, but some of you will probably identify,
Starting point is 00:40:18 I like the way it wears when you wash it. It's gotten softer. There's no of that threadbare deal. You know what I mean? Like it hasn't like weakened in the corners and that really matters to me. Durability matters. I clean my bedding a lot. And the Leisure Wear, same thing, I really like it. It's held its shape, especially in the waistband. Here's what I also dig about Cozy Earth. They really believe in their product. They give you a 100 night sleep trial. 100 nights! It's over three months, okay? And you can do it right
Starting point is 00:40:50 now, right? Which is like, especially on the East Coast, it's so nasty at night, so hot and humid. You can go to CozyEarth.com and use the code CHRIS and you will get up to 40% off the best-selling temperature regulating sheets, the apparel, and more. Okay, trust me, you're gonna feel the difference literally the first night. What is your big fear and what do you think your level of effectiveness is in dealing with the MAGA mirror movement on the left? The MAGA mirror movement on the left? Well, like you said about the impressions in the comedy, like it's fun because it does allow you to shine light on an absurdity and a truth.
Starting point is 00:41:32 It's one thing to just say that something's happening, but people can't, and people might agree with you, might not, they might see what you're saying, but they can't help it if they laugh. And if they laugh at something, you're hitting a nerve that they subconsciously already know to be true. The absurdity of watching a Tucker Carlson interview that he's trafficking in confusion,
Starting point is 00:41:51 in inconsistency, in incoherence. And I could say that and I can accuse him of such a thing. And fine, you might be able to evidence it. But if you can do it in a satirical fashion, I think it rings a lot more resonant and it hits a nerve in a very much more effective way and it's a lot more fun. It's more fun to do. I like it all. I don't really believe that. I mean, I love Chris Cuomo. I also detest Chris Cuomo. I mean, he's a great guy and he's one of my best friends. I'm like greatest friends actually, but I also hate him. So
Starting point is 00:42:20 I just think that it hits a certain nerve. But as far as the left mag, I mean what you're seeing is a problem of Like I think for a long time the far-left played identity politics They said the biggest most important thing about you is group identity is paramount and therefore because of that group identity You must believe certain things and you fall within a certain place in the hierarchy And then the and you know Jordan Peterson said this five years ago, he was like, if you keep playing this game far left, you're gonna get a reaction on the far right and you won't like it, it won't be pretty.
Starting point is 00:42:52 The identitarian right will come up and that's exactly where we are now. We have woke right, identitarian politics, which says we're gonna play that game now. And unfortunately in this far left woke and far right woke, the Jews never fit neatly into the category because they're the ultimate scapegoat. On the right, they're not considered white, they're considered interlopers, they're controlling everything, you know, and on the left,
Starting point is 00:43:14 they're considered Zionists, colonialists, oppressors, and they don't fit into that narrative either. Now, the woke and the like sort of Islamist extremists who detest America, they both have that in common, right? They both hate the West, they both hate America, they wanna see it destroyed. So there's a common enemy there on the far left and sort of the Islamic fundamentalism and the extremism. But on the far right, they're supposed to love America, they're supposed to love the military,
Starting point is 00:43:39 they're supposed to love capitalism. So what do they do? Ah, we do love those things, but the Jews have co-opted love those things. But the Jews have co-opted all those things. The global, the globalists, globalists have stolen our country, right? They have, they are controlling capitalism, the banks, they're controlling media. They're control, they, they are dragging our military, who we love into foreign wars. It's not like America has any agency of its own. It's all BB, you know, everybody was for the war in
Starting point is 00:44:04 Iraq on the Republican side, on the Democratic side, across the world, who represents mass destruction. But only Bibi Netanyahu solely came and testified, we will spread democracy in the region. And that was the only thing that no one could help themselves. He had to, it was all Bibi. So you see, there's a convenience there in finding the Jew as the ultimate scapegoat.
Starting point is 00:44:19 To spin this way throughout history, it's kind of interesting and fascinating why, but it's almost biblical. God told us this was gonna happen, so whatever. We'll take it. Where do you think this goes? Yeah, I'm not a prophet. I mean, we're in a world now where you just, you never saw certain things coming. We never saw COVID coming. We never saw Trump coming. There's a lot of things that I don't put anything past believability of what's possible.
Starting point is 00:44:45 I hope that as people get exhausted by certain things, I think we're at a point now where during the woke leftist dominant culture, you couldn't say anything, you couldn't joke about anything. And I saw Barry Weiss spoke about this recently. Now we're in the anti woke pendulum swing where you should say everything and anything. Be transgressive. And we're at a point now where beforehand, you couldn't accidentally quote a racial slur.
Starting point is 00:45:15 And now Kanye can release Heil Hitler, and everyone's talking about, even decent people are like, well, it's kind of catchy, what's he trying to say here? And I'm like, guys, you are culturally broken. There's a difference between art and reality. Kanye's an actual anti-Semite in real life. That's why the song is really truly problematic at its core.
Starting point is 00:45:35 Django Unchained would have been a very different movie in terms of how it was received if Quentin Tarantino was an actual racist in real life, but he's not. In the form of art, he's expressing a certain world and creating a certain world in which that exists. And we can make that distinction,
Starting point is 00:45:49 but people's brains are broken now, the world is upside down. And we look at a song like Heil Hitler by Kanye West. And some people say, hmm, you know, what do we want out of our culture? This is interesting, what's it mean? And I think, you know, the things you can say about Jews now,
Starting point is 00:46:04 not because of anti-cancel culture, but because of a lack of decency, we have lost that. So I'm hoping that- And we're so hyperbolic. So for instance, and I've been warning people about this, and it's too late now, calling Trump Hitler every five seconds, calling ICE Nazis, you know, this is all coming from the left all the time. And it cheapens
Starting point is 00:46:25 absolutely things and makes it easier to put those labels on things and now that's what we're seeing. And we're reaping what we sow a little bit of the backlash against that but I think we have to remember it's like Douglas Murray was like you know when the flag goes up in your victory you see who's around you know and we have to make sure to be aware of too much. You know, he's seeing like, okay, we, is this what victory looks like against the woke? A bunch of Murray on the podcast with Joe Rogan and Smith
Starting point is 00:46:55 was a real low point for me because it was such a Rorschach test. And I was really upset about that. Not because I have any interest in any of the measures or metrics that are used specifically in the podcast world for success, you know, owning, destroying, breaking, bodying, all that bullshit. But Douglas Murray made it so clear that Dave Smith,
Starting point is 00:47:22 Joe Rogan, a lot of these kind of comics turned commentators are Really inches deep in their understanding of what they're talking about and they're opportunistic in their rhetoric And yet it was all through the looking glass. It was all oh, well Joe just let them talk No, Joe didn't know what the fuck he was talking about, so he had to sit there and listen. And he used Dave Smith as a proxy for his own brain, and Dave couldn't be anything but petty in the face of Douglas Murray.
Starting point is 00:47:55 And then, you know, Douglas, who, you know, I've known a long time, I mean, he's not a friend, I just, I know his work, and he's clearly right about just about everything he's talking about. But then he took on this condescending tone that wound up defeating the purpose of the intellectual superiority because he came off like a fucking asshole and made Smith look like a victim, which emboldened him to his victim group, which believes that the aggrieved. And it was just a complete Rorschach test,
Starting point is 00:48:25 and it really bothered me that something that could have been meaningful was reduced to nothing but advantage. Well look, what I'll say about that whole conversation was like, you know, at first watching it, I'm a big fan of Douglas Murray, I've always appreciated his work and his voice of clarity, it's been incredible.
Starting point is 00:48:41 And initially watching it, I was like, this is just great because for so long I've been watching Dave Smith on various podcasts making these arguments and there's very little pushback So it was nice to see that but I do think Douglas loved Douglas, but he made Errors on tactics not on substance, but he made a few very significant tactical errors as far as what you know the categorization of Joe Rogan and or these people as opportunistic, like I just think like we are putting too much stake
Starting point is 00:49:07 in the fact that Joe Rogan is a comedian and a podcaster who's built an enormous audience and become the most successful in his field, having honest conversations and doing what he does, but we expect that he has to have the right point every single time along the way. And I don't think that's necessarily so fair. Like even if he's talking to Darrell Cooper, I don't know if Joe Rogan is aware of who David Irving is in the way
Starting point is 00:49:28 that Douglas Murray knows who David Irving is. I think he's talking to Darrell Cooper. He's been listening to Darrell Cooper in other contexts for seven years. I think what Douglas could have done is gone on and said, look, Joe, listen, I don't know who Darrell Cooper is like, and just sort of conceded, I don't know who he is in these other contexts. You very well could have benefited from his podcast, but that episode you did where he spoke about World War two Here's what's wrong with that. Here are the David Erving revisionist historical arguments that are being presented to you that you might not be aware of and I think it allows an opening of that Message to be received without you trying to you know
Starting point is 00:50:00 You're getting on the podcast saying you shouldn't talk about things You're not an expert in and you yourself don't necessarily know much about Darrell Cooper or Ian Carroll, you set yourself up for a trip wire there. So admitting that you don't know who these people are, but these things that they are saying are really dangerous and problematic, they could have gotten through that a lot quicker and then gone to the substance of Israel-Palestine. Now when the whole you've never been a moment was a powerful moment because I think let's remember the whole conversation about experts, Joe and Dave appeal to experts all the time.
Starting point is 00:50:31 Joe is an expert in say MMA, right? And that kind of commentary. And if somebody's bullshitting, he makes whole videos on Instagram back in the day of fake karate, of fake martial arts and laughing about it because he knows Tae Kwon Do and martial arts. So he can spot the bullshitter. So they have no problem appealing to experts
Starting point is 00:50:47 in fields that they're not experts in. Dave Smith appeals to other experts when it supports his narrative. Wesley Clark, General McChrystal Math, he will always pull those kind of experts when they support his point of view. Fair enough. The you've never been moment, this is really important.
Starting point is 00:51:02 Instead of just exposing that as a moment to say, okay, so you have perceptions and I have observations. That moment was just sort of exposing that Dave is sort of a commentator from a distance who's reading articles and headlines and looking at footage and Douglas has been there on the ground. But the missed opportunity after that moment was to say, okay, you have perceptions,
Starting point is 00:51:23 I have observations of what I've seen, tell me what you think, I'll tell you what I know, and we'll see where we can build from there. But instead I think both echo chambers in this argument were kind of pushed further away, and for someone already on the pro-Israel side, I felt very represented by what Douglas was saying and the case he was making,
Starting point is 00:51:41 and I was very happy to see that, and it was very satisfying, but I noticed that what was happening was the two different ankle chambers of the movable middle were getting pushed further and further away. When there is an opportunity to say, like you probably have all these perceptions about it,
Starting point is 00:51:55 but instead of making someone feel smaller, you could say, like, I've been there, like I've seen these things, tell me what you think. Like, and the truth is maybe Douglas was frustrated because he just wanted to talk to Joe and didn't even want this. So I don't know what was going on behind the scenes, but it was just that in that moment,
Starting point is 00:52:09 there's an opportunity to build where you could easily take the bait of. And the truth is he's saying that like effectively, the argument is you guys, imagine you release a comedy special and then somebody reviews the comedy special and hates on it. Come to find out he never goes to comedy clubs,
Starting point is 00:52:24 he never performs comedy, is just reading headlines about you or a New York Times article. I mean, they're always appealing to articles about Israel from Israeli sources. And then it's like, hey, does every New York Times article that gets written about America, you believe because it's an American article, but you're very willing to shit on Israel
Starting point is 00:52:38 because the press is Israeli. So I just think you can find ways to build consensus, even in areas you disagree. And I get why it's challenging and difficult. And I did feel very represented in a lot of ways. It took me time to unpack where sort of the fallout was from that conversation. I think in the end, everyone's gonna be okay.
Starting point is 00:52:55 Douglass is gonna be okay. He's an incredible advocate, an incredible spokesperson of truth in these scenarios. But that was also, you know, Jordan Peterson said, incredibly choppy waters, you know, and you said, incredibly choppy waters, you know, and you did what you had to do, you know, so it's like that. But I still think at the end of the day,
Starting point is 00:53:11 it's good that that conversation happened. As opposed to just Douglas going on solo, and Dave going on solo, like, that's not a bad thing. Like if there's- Oh no, no, no, that's definitely the way to do it. Yeah, so I thought it was good. You needed somebody who could be a fair broker like Christiane Amanpour, you know, even if she trends towards... Unless you're Mitt Romney.
Starting point is 00:53:30 Being anti-Bibi, so that there can be a real referee. That's the weakness of Rogan. The positive is he's got a huge platform and people get to go there and talk for a long time. And the weakness is they're unchecked. And I think that is a metaphor for the blessing and the curse of the pod space. And people want Joe to be a journalist. He never said he wasn't ever claimed to be. He's talking to people. You know what, there's something a little convenient
Starting point is 00:54:00 about that because he has opinions, wants things that he says to be taken as truth, he wants to be able to propagate other ideas, and there's a responsibility that comes along with that. You don't have to be a journalist. But he says and repeats a lot of stuff that is bullshit and he should know that. And the idea of, well, I'm not a journalist,
Starting point is 00:54:23 well, then what's the responsibility of the platform? Then maybe you should have a little black box warning at the bottom of your screen that says none of this is to be taken for the truth of the matter asserted, as the lawyers did with Tucker Carlson during the Dominion lawsuit. Right. I mean, at the end of the day, it's sort of like Joe is sort of the mirror of explaining what sort of the representing what the average every man is perceiving of world events and engaging with them. There's certain things
Starting point is 00:54:48 he knows a lot more about. There's certain things he doesn't know that much about, but doing it the way he's been doing it has clearly been working for him in terms of building up an audience of people that really connect to authentic conversation, warts and all, sloppiness and all. And I think the antidote to that is to engage with those arguments, correct those arguments, talk to to him talk to other people And just have more that's a sunlight's disinfectant kind of thing There are people if he did have on that I would think were more morally questionable and should know better Some people have told that line. I think the Ian Carroll moment was like whoa haven't you seen what this guy's saying on Twitter
Starting point is 00:55:18 But again, there's a little bit of a of a blind spot for conspiracy theory that I think Joe enjoys talking about and then at The very end he might have slipped in that whole Epstein stuff. So, and I think also, if you're not part of the Jewish community and know the history of antisemitism really deeply of how this stuff starts incrementally, like we're not trying to fall for the trap of calling everything antisemitic
Starting point is 00:55:39 and then it losing its power, which I think sometimes has that effect on people like Joe. But we also know that this stuff, politics is downstream from culture. And if you incrementally chip away at the Overton window of what's kind of acceptable ideas to talk about, and not saying you shouldn't be able to say them legally, but what we deem as kind of morally reprehensible or should be confronted and called out that stuff can happen. And you know, the next week,
Starting point is 00:56:01 he had Jordan on who tried to talk to him about it. He had Jordan Peterson on. So I always appreciate that he's been open and I think post October 7th we are very aware and hypersensitive of having seen this in this wellspring of anti-semitism let's remember Joe had on Abby Martin pre October 7th he had on Roger Waters once upon a time this is not so new we're just hyper aware of it because the times have shifted and we're hyper aware of the danger that the Jewish community design is community and Israelis face on a daily basis certainly and so it just it it hits a nerve in a different way now in this context
Starting point is 00:56:32 I'm not sure if Joe is as aware of that And I just do what I can to put that word out there So that hopefully I don't even know what the overton window is let alone where he is Within it, but he is in a platform right now that pretty much makes him the window pain. Are you working on an impression of me? I am, but I have to like lift so much more weight to really get it, because your arms are like
Starting point is 00:56:57 three times the size of mine. Yeah, I'd crush you like a bug, which is a problem. My size isn't the problem, it's that I've done nothing but study self-defense for the last 25 years. Okay. Well fair enough I think that what you're doing adds to the conversation. I think it's clever. I think it's brave I think it's controversial and I wish you well and I am glad To tell my audience they should check out what you're doing as critical thinkers because it's food for thought. And I wish you well, Ami. Thank you so much, Chris.
Starting point is 00:57:27 They can follow me on Ami Kozak. The podcast is called Ami's House Podcast. I appreciate talking to you. Thank you so much for having me on. Good to be with you. He's funny. He can't do me. I don't know about his Andrew impersonation,
Starting point is 00:57:42 but I'll tell you what, he's definitely resonating. His following keeps expanding because It's getting hotter and hotter in the Middle East and we're feeling it back here at home and it's being reflected in our own politics So what did you think some of your questions and comments check them out if you want to I? Appreciate you for subscribing and following here at the Chris Cuomo project. Thank you for watching at News Nation AP and 11p Eastern every weekday night. Thank you for subscribing at the subst Nation, APN 11P, Eastern every weekday night. Thank you for subscribing at the sub stack. And I will, if you pay, answer your questions
Starting point is 00:58:10 and get your questions to the people that I interview there. Wear your free agent gear, wear your independence. Let people say you're not about party. You're not some Patsy. You're a critical thinker. You're an independent. Let's get after it.

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